Help

How to know which Therapy Treatment is Best For You…

Deciding which of the main therapeutic approaches may be the best choice is an individual decision.

Some folks may have had previous experience with one or more of the services that Tri-Massage offers. Others, may have an instinct for which therapy would be best suited to meet their needs. Some, will know they need treatment, relief, or to have an improved quality of life — but, be uncertain which therapeutic approach is the right choice for them. Having background information, relating some of the research and history of each therapy, may help in making the personal determination easier.

More comprehensive information about the individual therapies is reviewed on this “Help” page (and,“Links” section) to allow for individuals to make better informed choices, concerning their complimentary healthcare options, concerns and avenues for improved recovery and/or well being.

~ (Information, specific to Tri-Massage Plus individual therapies, is located in the “Services” section.)

MASSAGE THERAPY

The power of Bodywork…

Regardless of the adjectives assigned to it (pampering, rejuvenating, therapeutic) or the reasons we seek it out (a luxurious treat, stress relief, pain management), Massage Therapy can be a powerful ally in your healthcare regimen.

Experts estimate that upwards of ninety percent of disease is stress related. And perhaps nothing ages us faster, internally and externally, than high stress. While eliminating anxiety and pressure altogether in this fast-paced world may be idealistic, massage can, without a doubt, help manage stress.

Clients often report a sense of perspective and clarity after receiving a Massage Therapy treatment. The emotional balance bodywork provides can often be just as vital and valuable as the more tangible physical benefits.

Profound Effects…

The skin is the largest organ of the body. Without touch, we would fail to thrive. Additionally, in response to Massage Therapy, specific physiological and chemical changes cascade throughout the body, with profound effects.

Research demonstrates that with Massage Therapy…

Arthritis sufferers note fewer aches and less stiffness and pain.

Asthmatic children show better pulmonary function and increased peak air flow.

Premenstrual syndrome sufferers have decreased water retention and cramping.

Preterm infants have improved weight gain.

Research continues to show the Enormous Benefits of Touch…

Range of benefits include treating chronic diseases, neurological disorders, and injuries, to alleviating the tensions of modern lifestyles. Consequently, the medical community is actively embracing bodywork, and massage is becoming an integral part of hospice care and neonatal intensive care units. Many hospitals are also incorporating on-site massage practitioners and even spas to treat postsurgery or pain patients as part of the recovery process.(*) (**) (***)

HYPNOTHERAPY

How Does Hypnotherapy Work?

The commonly accepted theory, defining how Hypnotherapy works:
the mind has two parts, the conscious and the subconscious. During treatment, Hypnotherapy practitioners help individuals to reach their subconscious mind by entering into a trance like state. When achieving this state, issues and new goals, that have been outlined, are verbally introduced through the use of repetitive suggestions designed to achieve the maximum benefit and goal success. This process is referred to as the Hypnotherapy induction and treatment.

There are Three distinct stages of Hypnotherapy …

The first stage is a superficial trance. Although the eyes may be closed, the person is very much aware of their surroundings, and unless instructed to the contrary, willremember the entire event.

The second stage; known as the alpha state–is significantly deeper. The heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration slow, and control of response to pain or allergies, and even altering the immune system is more easily achieved. In the alpha stage, instructions to stop smoking or weight loss, pain management, etc. are most effective.

The third stage is deeper still. In this stage, a person can be mentally directed back in time, remembering events from their past with extreme clarity. This technique is termed “age regression,” This is a very specialized hypnosis induction, intended to address childhood issues that may be presently affecting health in an adverse way.

Because hypnosis deals with the subconscious, a frequently raised concern is that the therapist can somehow take control. In fact, the Hypnotherapy Practitioner is really a facilitator; as there can be no hypnosis unless, the client is fully willing to participate. The goal of hypnosis is for the person to gain control–over their own behavior, and emotions.

Four conditions need to be met for therapeutic hypnosis to be successful …

1. A comfortable environment without distractions,
2. Establishing a good rapport with the Hypnotherapy Practitioner,
3. Willingness, on the client’s part, to be hypnotized,
4. Client commitment to achieve the goal outcome.

Research Studies have Demonstrated …

Deeper hypnosis can be beneficial in relieving pain with both acute and chronic health conditions; for example: arthritis, fibromyalgia, and even cancer. In a study funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), Office of Alternative Medicine; researchers found that when using hypnosis techniques, people suffering from chronic back pain were able to reduce their pain sensation by 80%. They also said they felt significantly less depressed and were able to sleep better at night.

Research published in medical journals also offers intriguing evidence of the effectiveness of hypnosis in chronic and acute illness and crisis situations, as well as helpful treatment following an injury. Emergency room doctors use the spontaneous trance induced by severe injury to help accident victims relax. Intensive care nurses use hypnosis to stabilize patients’ heart rates and respiration. Burns may heal more quickly, with less infection and scar tissue, when hypnosis is part of the recuperative therapy. In an NIH-funded pilot study, Harvard researchers found that broken bones healed faster with the help of hypnosis. The cardiac surgery unit at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York has some patients consult with a staff Hypnotherapy Practitioner before surgery to reduce their anxiety and increase their sense of control.

Reiki

What is Reiki therapy?

Reiki is a technique for stress reduction that also promotes healing. During a session, the patient remains clothed and the practitioner’s hands are placed near or lightly touching various parts of the body, including areas around the head, shoulders, stomach, legs, and feet. Reiki seeks to restore order to the body whose vital energy has become unbalanced.

Reiki energy has several basic effects: it brings about deep relaxation, destroys energy blockages, detoxifies the system, provides new vitality in the form of healing universal life energy, and increases the vibrational frequency of the body.

Because the therapist intention (prayer/positive thought/focused energy) is a key component of treatment, some practitioners refer to Reiki therapy as, “laying on of the hands”. And, to an observer, that reference might best describe how a Reiki treatment appears. However, this can also be said of Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Polarity Therapy and almost any of the “light touch” therapeutic modalities.

What makes Reiki treatment different from the other forms of “light touch” therapies?

• History: Reiki is believed to have begun in Tibet several thousand years ago. Seers in the Orient studied energies and developed a system of sounds and symbols for universal healing energies. Various healing systems, which crossed many different cultures, emerged from this single root system.

Dr. Mikao Usui, a Japanese Christian educator in Kyoto, Japan, rediscovered the root system in the mid- to late 1800s. He began an extensive twenty-one-year study of the healing phenomena of history’s greatest spiritual leaders. He also studied ancient sutras (Buddhist teachings written in Sanskrit). He discovered ancient sounds and symbols that are linked directly to the human body and nervous system which activate the universal life energy for healing.

Usui then underwent a metaphysical experience and became empowered to use these sounds and symbols to heal. He called this form of healing Reiki and taught it throughout Japan until his death around 1893.

The tradition was passed through several grandmasters of Reiki such as Dr. Chujiro Hyashi, Hawayo Takata, and Phyllis Lei Furumoto. ((*))

• Training: In the west, Reiki training includes 4 distinct steps or “levels”. At one time, prior to Reiki’s recently increased popularity in the medical community, advancing to each level allowed for a specified amount of time to occur between trainings. Training, itself, involves the student absorbing the physiological teachings relative to healing touch, and “energy work”; as well as orienting to specifics of Usui and Takata traditional spiritual understandings specific to Reiki healing, practitioner ethics, and healthy living practices. ((**))

• Outcomes:

A research study at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut indicates that Reiki improved patient sleep by 86 percent, reduced pain by 78 percent, reduced nausea by 80 percent, and reduced anxiety during pregnancy by 94 percent. A 2008 USA Today article reported that in 2007 15% of U.S. hospitals (over 800) offered Reiki as a regular part of patient services.

Further conclusions reported by the “Center for Reiki Research in Hospitals”, have reported that clinical studies demonstrate that
Reiki therapy provides positive benefit for …

• Pre and post-operative pain

• Pain in chronic illness

• Cognition of folks with Alzheimers’

• Depression and Stress

• Musculoskeletal conditions

also noted in studies provided by UCLA; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029111913.htm

What do Recipients of Reiki healing Experience?

Most clients/patients report feelings of relaxation, and patients often fall asleep during a session. However, given that everyone is an individual and has their own level of sensitivity and personal make-up — the range of responses can vary with each session.

Some folks will experience “tingling” sensation(s), others report a sense of warmth, lightness, peace, as well as the sense of “blocked areas” – opening, etc. Subsequent to treatment, cliients most commonly experience relief of some or all of their symptoms or an improvement in their condition. Sometimes, this improvement will be long term. Other times, it is for a shorter period and, and repeated sessions provide for extended periods of improvement.

Because each person is different, each condition/symptom will manifest, according to its nature and also vary according to the person. What is confirmed between all recipients, Reiki treatments are helpful; serve as a healing aid, providing multiple benefits. ((***))

Where the science and spirituality of Reiki healing meet?

In very recent research/clinical studies done by medical institutions (including Columbia University), Reiki therapy has shown proven beneficial outcomes. Science studies have affirmed some these the outcomes and efforted to explain the mechanisms of Reiki healing, via review of the biomagnetic field exampling and (ELF) studies, which measure the electrical field, pulsing, vibration and frequencies
of practitioner’s hands. ((****))

The good news: the scientific and medical community have found the treatment to be beneficial and can confirm outcomes. These studied outcomes and others are the very same that Reiki practitioners have been effecting and reporting for over a hundred years.

It is also good news that more hospitals are including Reiki treatment as part of their patient services.

Science and ‘western medicine’ have made strides toward understanding the effects of energy healing and its potential benefits…(in large part, through its studies of long standing, traditional practitioners). This has provided wider, positive acceptance in the general, as well as medical communities and its universities with respect to Reiki therapy. Let us hope this new found common ground will produce a healthy relationship and respect between Reiki practitioners and the health care industry.

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(**) In the state of Michigan, neither licensing or certification is required for an individual to offer “massage services”. Salons, boutiques and ‘clinics’ are not required to contract with or hire fully trained or accredited masseuses. It is advisable to ask for credentials and about background training of those offering massage services, as well as of staff, who provide the service. It is a good idea to check, whenever being assigned to a new masseuse, in any provider’s setting. Though, Massage Therapy is generally safe for all folks, and most conditions; there may be conditions that could be worsened or underlying inflammation that could aggravated, if the technician does not have the professional expertise or educational background to appropriately evaluate and treat a client.

Certified Massage Therapists and ‘Medical Massage’ practitioners; who are practicing Therapeutic Massage have received training from a state approved/accredited school for Massage Therapy instruction. There are many more schools that have opened the door for this training in the last ten years. Each school has certain requirements for certification. Most accredited schools; curriculum will include an “internship” requirement that needs to be met prior to certification. The number of hours varies, according to school. Accepted standards for fully trained therapists are generally around 1,000 hours of training and include the internship hours in the total.

Some accredited schools focus on a General Therapeutic Massage curriculum, while others are more specific to Medical Massage techniques. There is no set of techniques that has been consistently determined to define a ‘Medical Massage’. It seems to be a term that has sprung up among schools, as more of a philosophy than definitive application or set of applications. It seems more a matter of semantics, rather than a training distinction. As, any Massage Therapist with 1,000 hours of training is skilled and schooled in the majority of actual techniques and anatomy courses, which are also offered at schools for ‘Medical Massage’ practitioners. The difference seems to be that ‘Medical Massage Practitioners’ are not always schooled in stress reduction/relaxation techniques or, other types of integrative massage therapy treatments, if the philosophy of the school’s training strictly focuses on only its particular clinical technique and discipline. In some cases, Medical Massage Therapists do pursue addiitonal training in stress reduction techniques and, other complimentary therapy applications and methods, in order to more fully respond to patient or client needs and, health conditions.

The majority of research, outlining the benefits of Massage Therapy, have focused their studies and noted results from General or Integrated Massage Therapy approaches that relieve a diverse set of health conditions, including stress reduction. (***)

None of the complimentary therapies can promise a cure or provide for a medical diagnosis. There are very few medical contra-indications for any of the therapeutic options offered. However, those medical conditions may require a Physician’s approval prior to receiving certain types Massage Therapy treatment. It is best to be open with your therapist when discussing the best treatment option for your individual situation.

Because terms like “universal life force energy” are used to describe Reiki healing energy (electrical current), some religious groups are needlessly suspicious of Reiki therapy and/or its practitioners. However, Electrical current Flows when turning on a light switch. Electricity is required for Electrocardiograms. Do we know where the charge comes from? Science does not. Einstein provided us with great insights, pertaining to relativity, however he could not determine where the ‘spark’ originates. My opinion – this is how he personally came to the conclusion; “…all of life is a miracle”.

Usui has been identified as a Christian man. I think, he did not see his purpose as an “evangelist”,
rather as a teacher. A teacher, willing to provide healing to anyone in need.

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((**)) The Five Admonitions

• Observe throughout the day, with all your effort, the arising of anger, then look deeper for its true cause.

• Observe your mind throughout the day for the arising of worry and restlessness, look deeper at their roots.

• Be mindful, each moment of your day, appreciating the gift of life, find the right livelihood for yourself and be honest in your work.

• In your day, as you appreciate your life, be kind to yourself and to all beings.

• Your mind and body will truly transform with the power of Reiki, practice daily, connect to the universal nature of mind, and develop these Reiki ideals everyday.
~ From Jin Ki Do Reiki

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((***)) Based on the logic of science, no Reiki healing treatment or outcome can be absolutely replicated… Same responses between a Person A. or Person B (or, session A. or session B.). cannot be expected. What is confirmed between all recipients, healing occurs. The amount of time and treatments needed may vary. Additionally, Reiki healing is a term that is applied to the “mind, body and spirit.” So, for instance; to heal the body of illness, a person may also need to address issues troubling the mind and/or the spirit. However, even in the case of perfect balance — healing cannot be controlled or a cure manifested. Ultimately, the Reiki practitioner and client partner to improve quality of life, to teach and support the essence of life, and to offer compassionate healing; facilitated by Reiki, as it stems from the Giver of life or the “universal healing energy” for that purpose.

All of this happens through Reiki healing. Though, for practical purposes, in depth discussion about Reiki healing does not accompany the treatment or, encumber session times.

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((****)) In research studies provided by Dr. John Zimmerman *as cited by , pulsing emitted from hands of energy practitioners produce ELF signals. The pulsing field is not a steady frequency but varies from moment to moment.. in the same way as the ELF band does when jumpstarting the healing process.

These pulsing frequencies are introduced into tissues at frequency levels, which medical researchers have identified as key to tissue healing.

Zimmerman’s conclusions also state; “Hands of individuals who do not practice healing energy work; do not emit the ELF signals.”

Zimmerman’s study and conclusions have been cited by James L. Oschman; PHD. in an article; “Science and the Human Energy Field; 2002. Oschman is a “leading authority on scientific understanding of hands on healing.” His spectrum of study, research and expertise includes; Electron Microscopy: studying the structure and function of various cells and tissues.

also see: http://www.energeticfitness.net/hef_study_article.htm

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((*****)) _______________________________
It is advisable and reasonable for clients to ask about a therapist’s training and philosophy.
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There are very limited contra-indications for Reiki or healing energy therapies, there are a few conditions that do warrant certain therapeutic discipline and understanding, on the part of the practitioner. It is always best to be open when discussing your situation with your therapist, in order for the highest quality outcome.

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